Met up with a good friend in Cobram (northern Victoria) recently and we were mulling over the reportedly fragile position of SPC in Shepparton. And the problem is endemic across other fruit processors and the fruit growers supplying them. Large quantities of fruit are not being processed due to a combination of cheap imported product, a relatively high $AUD and ridiculously vague labelling laws in this country. Many regions are in the same boat.
A few years back when I was with the feds we were trying to find some triggers to get investors – overseas conglomerates, local business groups or eastern European migrants with a memory for their glory days – to establish distilleries to make fruit liqueurs from pears, apricots, oranges, lemons and the like. Glacé fruits and essential oils were other potential product lines. But nothing much happened.
Well this month I rang the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry here in Canberra to see if they might have a crack at pulling things together, but I was advised that this is outside their activities. So I rang the CSIRO and although it initially said it’s probably downstream of their role, they’ve had a further think and have identified some areas where CSIRO technology could help add value to the food resource. For example:
- technology for superior concentrate aroma and flavour
- down-stream drying/powder technology – for end-product consumer applications
- nutrient and bioactive technology (extraction, separation, stabilisation) for horticulture applications.
We are mulling over the scope to run some workshops in this space. If your council wants to go in to bat for your local growers, please ring.
Northern Australia Package
I am writing this on 28 November, so it’s probably old news by the time you read it. But the Abbott Government is about to announce a multi-billion dollar play for northern Australia. It is quite remarkable. My sources suggest that a female mining baron from WA had a large hand in it.
Murray Darling Diversification Fund
We are getting mixed messages about this $100 million program. There is a risk that this Fund could disappear if the Commission of Audit takes a scorched earth approach. The history lies in a certain chairman of the Murray Darling Basin Authority almost getting lynched in Griffith in 2010 when trying to sell the water cutbacks to some very agitated farmers.
Anyway, most councils in the Basin that suffered heavily during the drought are onto this. It seems that the feds have asked the Regional Development Australia Committees and South Australia to forward priority proposals, perhaps as part of some deal that Penny Wong brokered with Premier Weatherill. The situation for other states in unclear.
NSW Tourism under-performing
The NSW Government says it’s very concerned with the decline of NSW destination appeal – being outperformed by Victoria and Queensland especially. A Visitor Economy Taskforce report ‘A Plan to Double Overnight Visitor Expenditure to NSW by 2020’ recently concluded:
- NSW must increase visitation, grow physical capacity, renew & revitalise destinations, improve the visitor experience, increase visitor spend, make Sydney and NSW more competitive, change mindsets etc.
- An integrated approach is needed for product and infrastructure development, positioning, promotion and marketing.
- Quality experiences/events are needed to drive major regional destination re-launches.
This is all sensible stuff. To this end, Destination NSW has a Regional Visitor Economy Fund of $7.2m/year for grants of $50k- 500K for product development. But the odd thing is that it has no funding for infrastructure, which is inconsistent with above conclusions. Meanwhile the Vics are forging ahead.
G20 projects
The biggest gathering of world leaders ever in Australia is happening in Brisbane next November. A major theme will be trade and foreign direct investment, so this is very topical given the significant investment being made in our pastoral and horticulture industries at present. As an aside, we are getting feedback from all sorts of places about the Chinese being very active, often buying through second parties. After the hardship of the Millenium Drought, farmers and growers appear happy to sell out and take the Surfers Paradise option.
While the rise of the Chinese Tiger’s investment appetite might get some coverage in Brisbane, we figure there are exciting and positive issues that we might advance via the G20 process. We are thus in talks with the OECD about the possibility of action-oriented projects being developed at Cockatoo workshops, feeding into the G20 summit process. Will keep you posted.
Coffee sessions in Canberra
We have 15–20 Cockatoo members in Canberra who have extensive former experience with the feds – Industry, DFAT, Austrade, Infrastructure and Transport, DAFF, Regional Development, Science, Customs, Housing & Construction, IP Australia.
We are now offering Cockatoo members the opportunity to brainstorm your ideas with some of them (FREE of charge once you pay the $200 membership fee). You forward in advance a brief paper outlining the gist of your proposal – we set a date and place, we invite 4–5 of our network with the relevant background, we spend an hour helping you with your proposal. The ‘out of towner’ might pay for the coffee.
Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant and lobbyist specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction and clusters, and accessing federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network.
Phone: (02) 6231 7261 or 0412 922 559
Email: apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au
Blog: www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com (750 articles)
